Racebook

"In Don Ray Smith's novel, Racebook, he explores America's diversity: whites, blacks, Asians-workers who range from management to armed services, teachers to day-laborers, housewives to lap dancers. Writing excellent dialogue and defining the various times and places with music, food, and poetry, the author gives a realistic portrayal of issues. The story begins with a new widower, Joe Normal, a middle-aged manager of a printing firm in the city who seeks Bernie, his long-ago girlfriend from a small mountain college. In alternating chapters, Smith divides his novel into the present and decades past. The young white man, Joe, had loved Bernie, a pretty black girl, but having dropped her without explanation, his attempts to find her and win her again are slim. Rudolph and Denise, the black couple Joe hires to find her, take the search from areas of hotel sales to small town beauty shops, high-class restaurants, and bars in the 'hood. There are good guys and bad guys in this gripping story, who allow Smith to illuminate lifestyles, ideas, and conversation. Along the way, we discover friendship between the races, and also animosity carried to extreme results. The author brings each situation to the fore in this introspective, humorous and highly entertaining work."--Mary Popham.